Adelaide Cunningham--you do know her, don't
you, Mr. Daniell? She is my dearest friend. How many do you make that?"

The publisher counted them carefully.

"Eleven including ourselves," he announced.

"And we should be twelve," Lady Anselman sighed. "Of course!" she added,
her face suddenly brightening. "What an idiot I am! It's Ronnie we are
waiting for. One can't be cross with him, poor fellow. He can only just
get about."

The fair girl, who had overheard, leaned across. The shade of newly
awakened interest in her face, and the curve of her lips as she spoke,
added to her charm. A gleam of sunlight flashed upon the yellow-gold of
her plainly coiled hair.

"Is it your nephew, Captain Ronald Granet, who is coming?" she asked a
little eagerly.

Lady Anselman nodded.

"He only came home last Tuesday with dispatches from the front," she
said. "This is his first day out."

"Ah! but he is wounded, perhaps?" Madame Selarne inquired solicitously.

"In the left arm and the right leg," Lady Anselman assented. "I believe
that he has seen some terrible fighting, and we are very proud of his D.
S. O. The only trouble is that he is like all the others--he will tell
us nothing."

"He shows excellent judgment," Lord Romsey observed.

Lady Anselman glanced at her august guest a little querulously.

"That is the principle you go on, nowadays, isn't it?" she remarked. "I
am not sure that you are wise. When one is told nothing, one fears
the worst, and when time after time the news of these small disasters
reaches us piecemeal, about three weeks late, we never get rid of our
forebodings, even when you tell us about victories.... Ah! Here he comes
at last," she added, holding out both her hands to the young man who was
making his somewhat difficult way towards them. "Ronnie, you are a few
minutes late but we're not in the least cross with you. Do you know that
you are looking better already? Come and tell me whom you don't know of
my guests and I'll introduce you."

The young man, leaning upon his stick, greeted his aunt and murmured a
word of apology. He was very fair, and with a slight, reddish moustache
and the remains of freckles upon his face. His grey eyes were a little
sunken, and there were lines about his mouth which one might have
guessed had been brought out recently by pain or suffering of some sort.
His left arm reclined uselessly in a black silk sling. He glanced around
the little assembly.

"First of all,